Whispering Verse

The light rain started continuously in the afternoon and continued until the evening, and even tended to get heavier and heavier. Shade hoped that the rain would stop before the night's operation, but until Dr. Schneider and Miss Louisa came to the door, the rain was still pouring down.

The rainwater gathered into a curtain and hung down under the eaves in front of Shade's house, like beads falling. The warm yellow gas lamp in the courtyard was bright, blurred by the rain. In the strange halo, the doctor wearing rain boots arrived at No. 6 Saint Teresa Square first on this humid night, followed by Miss Louisa who came in a carriage.

"Good evening, Shade."

The doctor was surprised when she called Shade by his first name. But nothing was said. Middle-aged men would not care about the relationship between young people.

There are two targets tonight, Mr. Ponton of the Chengdong Steam Engine Screw Factory and Mr. Roosevelt, the accountant of the Star Grass Public Tobesk Nursing Home. After the three of them met, they compared the city map with each other in Shade's study to plan their course of action.

Finally decided to go to Mr. Roosevelt, the accountant first.

According to Mr. Schneider's investigation during the day today, the accountant lives in the nursing home during the weekdays and only goes home on Sundays. The Star Grass Nursing Home is closer to St. Teresa Square.

At Dr. Schneider's expense, the three of them got into a carriage and rushed to the nursing home. Rainy summer days are especially cool, and the city is silent amidst the sound of rain. The gas lights in the upper city and the candlelight in the lower city are all part of this era.

Xingxingcao Nursing Home is a public nursing home. Of course, you need to spend some gold pounds to enter. The three of them got off the car at the intersection. Shade and Miss Louisa held guard on both sides of the street with umbrellas. Dr. Schneider entered the nursing home alone.

There would be no pedestrians on such a rainy night, and the surroundings seemed to be surrounded by moist air and darkness. When Shade stood at the intersection and looked around, he also thought that if the behavior of peeking into the door in the alley when he went to visit the girl Sophie last Saturday night was like a horror story, then the current scene was probably very similar to a detective or spy novel. picture.

It only took the blue-eyed doctor fifteen minutes to walk out of the nursing home wrapped in a coat. It seemed that the operation was going smoothly.

"I entered his dream and saw the things that the blood of mercury asked him to preserve. A black cloak, and a colorful biscuit box that must not be opened. The former cannot be exposed to sunlight, and I have an impression of the latter. That It's a poet-level relic [the cannibal cookie box], which can swallow living people and turn them into cookies. These are not what I'm looking for."

He lowered his voice in the rain and waved to the two of them:

"I got other information in my dream. Roosevelt's accountant helped [Mercury Blood] sell stolen goods. I don't know anything about them. There are no more clues here. Let's go to the next target."

Dr. Schneider's ability to enter dreams is really convenient for dealing with ordinary people.

Mr. Ponton, who owned a screw factory for steam engines in the east of the city, was not considered a powerful and wealthy man in a place like Tobesk. He has his own large house in the east end of Tobesk, which is about twice the size of Shade's house.

This is a specialized residential area, and the people who can live here at least cross the bottom line of the so-called "middle class."

With Shade and Miss Louisa still standing guard outside, Dr. Schneider quickly climbed over the fence outside the yard and followed the gravel path to find the direction of the bedroom.

This time he came back faster. Shade had the [time perception] ability and accurately knew that it only took him two minutes and eighteen seconds.

Not only Shade was surprised, but also Miss Louisa was surprised by the doctor's quick action. The three of them held umbrellas and listened to the sound of rain. When they met at the door of Mr. Ponton's yard, Miss Louisa congratulated:

"Doctor, your thaumaturgy is getting better and better. It took ten minutes half an hour ago, but now you can get information from dreams in three minutes."

"What's getting worse? Something big happened..."

Thunder flashed across the air, and the sudden white light illuminated Miss Louisa's slightly wet hair, and illuminated the heavy expression of disbelief on Dr. Schneider's face.

Then, the rumble of thunder sounded from afar, and the sound seemed to shake the whole world.

Shade, who was also in the rain, looked at the dark street with his peripheral vision, and the hand holding the umbrella felt the tremor of the dense raindrops hitting the umbrella surface. The light of the gas street lamps on the street becomes even dimmer on rainy nights. The light can only be shrunk to a small area under the street lamps, and flying insects cannot even be seen flying around the street lamps.

Shade didn't like this kind of weather. Now he was very envious of the cat who could rest on the windowsill and listen to the sound of rain in a warm and dry home.

The doctor ignored the fact that it was still raining and pointed to the mansion behind him in the night rain. Shade came back to his senses and looked over with Miss Louisa:

"Everyone inside is dead."

Generally speaking, correspondence magicians will not take the initiative to get involved in troublesome things that have nothing to do with themselves. But for the [Counterfeit Philosopher's Stone], the five members of the team almost faced the evil god directly at Lakeview Manor. Even if everyone inside is dead, the doctor will not give up on the investigation.

On the contrary, the death of an ordinary person related to the blood of mercury just shows that he is very likely to have important clues.

In order to prevent the Orthodox Church from causing trouble for "destroying the crime scene", before entering the house with only dead people, the doctor prepared shoe covers, gloves and hats for everyone, while Miss Louisa tied the long hair with a rope. Tie your hair. Of course they couldn't predict what would happen tonight, but according to the doctor, it was his habit to carry these things with him when going out.

It was hard for Shade to imagine what kind of "big things" Dr. Schneider had done.

The house is divided into three floors, and the doctor just climbed in through the window. But since it was now confirmed that there was no living person inside, they entered directly through the main entrance. Instead of using magic or magic to open the lock, the female writer poked it a few times with a hairpin and the lock opened.

Entering through the front door, moisture immediately pours into the interior of the house. The house was dark, and suddenly another thunder pierced the night sky. In the light of lightning, they saw a woman dressed as a servant lying in the hall, with a dark stain of blood underneath her body.

"He's been dead for at least two hours."

The psychiatrist knelt down to examine the body. Shade and Miss Louisa hid their umbrellas in the shadows beside the door and walked into the house. Closing the door blocked the sound of rain and prevented passers-by from noticing.

The psychiatrist's autopsy skills were also quite good. He then examined the fatal injuries with the faint light in his hand. The light spell was indeed a very common spell:

"A weapon similar to a short knife was stabbed directly into the heart, killing him with one blow. The technique was very sophisticated."

"Could it be that the dagger-like relics he kept were out of control?"

Because of the "fish scale" incident last week, Shade thought of this possibility, and Miss Louisa seemed to have the same view.

"This possibility cannot be ruled out..."

The doctor looked at the darkness around him and asked:

"Does your alter ego sense the whispering element?"

Shade and Miss Louisa both made a gesture of listening:

"No."

both said.

But this doesn't mean anything. Even if the relic is out of control, the elements will not be felt even 800 miles away. The last time they faced the fish-man, Shade and Miss Louisa got the hint when they saw the guy.

Dr. Schneider stepped aside, and Shade and Miss Louisa stepped forward to examine the body. But they couldn't find anything. Shade's fingertips shone with a faint silver light. Under the light, he looked at the corpse with eyes that were fixed in death.

Thinking of something in his mind, he blinked. Although the moisture of the rain pouring in from outside the door diluted the smell of blood, he could still see very faint traces of blood in the air, extending towards the inside of the house.

There is no reason why the knife used as the murder weapon should not be stained with blood.

Then he tried the thaumaturgy [Echoes of the Past], but unfortunately all he heard were messy fragments of life. This kind of place where people live is not a good setting for this spell to be effective.

"Did you see blood?"

Seeing Shade's eyes staring forward, the blonde girl, who had worked with Shade once, asked softly.

Shade nodded, and while Miss Louisa was explaining to the doctor, he turned to look at the door, and lowered his voice to cover up the sound of rain outside:

"There is no blood stain in the direction of the door, and the blood stain extends to the inside of the house. This shows that the possible murderer continued inward after committing the murder here and never came back."

He analyzed in a low voice.

"As expected of a detective!"

Dr. Schneider also lowered his voice and patted Shade on the shoulder:

"Very good, then follow the direction of the blood stains. We have destroyed the scene, so if we can't find the [Fake Philosopher's Stone], write down the clues we found and leave them here. The church will also know about us. Not all correspondence magicians are troublemakers."

Doing so is actually causing trouble.

Shade went in front, the doctor walked beside Shade, and Miss Louisa came last. Under the silver moonlight on Shade's fingertips and the sound of rain getting louder outside, they continued to go deeper into the house.

The second body was found in the restaurant. A fifteen-year-old boy was lying on the dining table. After careful inspection, it was found that this time his neck was directly severed by a sharp weapon.

"There is no confusion around the blood stain, which means that after the knife was brought here, he killed with one blow and then left immediately, so the trajectory of the knife was not confused nearby."

Shade said, turning around and looking at the restaurant. Except around the body, there were no obvious blood stains left today. The murderer did not stop here.

"The killing techniques are very sophisticated."

remarked Miss Louisa, looking around the dimly lit kitchen while the doctor examined the body.

"Look, there are actually two sets of silverware here. It's really rich. No, it's not ordinary silverware, this is..."

The blonde girl frowned as she opened the cupboard.

"An antique from the Nolov dynasty? This factory owner still has this?"